“And you, my son Solomon, accept the God of your father. Serve him completely and willingly, because the Lord knows what is in everyone’s mind. He understands everything you think. If you go to him for help, you will get an answer. But if you turn away from him, he will leave you forever.
People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives to know the Lord, because all people will know me, from the least to the most important,” says the Lord. “I will forgive them for the wicked things they did, and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
I wish I had a place in the desert— a house where travelers spend the night— so I could leave my people. I could go away from them, because they are all unfaithful to God; they are all turning against him.
“They use their tongues like a bow, shooting lies from their mouths like arrows. Lies, not truth, have grown strong in the land. They go from one evil thing to another. They do not know who I am,” says the Lord.
And the Lord said to Moses, “You will soon die. Then these people will not be loyal to me but will worship the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will leave me, breaking the Agreement I made with them.
They say they know God, but their actions show they do not accept him. They are hateful people, they refuse to obey, and they are useless for doing anything good.
The Israelites served the Lord during the lifetime of Joshua and during the lifetimes of the elders who lived after Joshua who had seen what the Lord had done for Israel.